Trainers in the South Midlands will be praying that Storm Cieran, the latest in the series of named weather events this wet October, does not impact on the racing schedule as a damp autumnal Monday at Huntingdon showcased three trainers whose strings are coming into form just as the Jumps season steps up a gear. 

In normal circumstances, it would be hard to raise the heartbeat watching a mundane Monday card especially after a treat of a weekend that saw five Irish winners at Cheltenham and a host of prospective smart candidates for the big time some time hence. 

The opening handicap chase proved a winning chase debut for Kankin, trained at Edgcote by Alex Hales, his sixth of the new term, and the latest since a winner here two weeks ago. Although the margin of victory was 1 1/4l, any one of four could have won with 150 yards to run. Kielan Woods conjured up an extra effort from the seven year old, clearly relishing a switch to the bigger obstacles and eschewing novice chase conditions for handicap class straightway.

Not to be outdone, neighbour Ben Case replied thirty minutes later when Boleyn Boy ran out a 4 1/4l winner in a novices handicap hurdle to keep the party feeling in Edgcote alive. 

Laura Horsfall is well known to Pointing fans, having enjoyed great success in the amateur division over many years. She showed just what a good grounding the Point-to-Point circuit can be when producing Jack The Savage to win the low grade handicap hurdle over the minimum trip, his maiden victory over the smaller obstacles following Bumper success at Worcester in mid-summer 2022.

Something of a newbie to the professional ranks, Laura took out a full trainer's licence for the 2021-22 season, and enjoyed 3 winners last term. Whilst she won't be worrying the likes of Nicholls or Henderson just yet, you can ask no more than that yards improve their score season on season. With only seven runners to date this season, she boasts a very respectable 20% strike rate in hurdle races.

Back in the amateur ranks, the start of a new Point-to-Point season is imminent, but the weather is playing its part here to blow events off course. Knightwick, adjacent to the Teme river, is already waterlogged and looking for a fresh date to replace November 11. 

Alex Hales wouldn't describe himself as a keen advocate of the summer Jumps fixture list, and his 50 runners so far hardly mark him out in the vanguard of our Jumps trainers. 

Nevertheless, there is clear evidence that his stable are ready for the off. Just two runners in the past 3 weeks have left Edgcote, but resulted in a second and a winner. That winner was today at Huntingdon, where Kielan Woods teamed up with No Risk With Lou to notch a 7l victory over the Skelton-trained Great Samourai in a lowly handicap chase.

This was No Risk With Lou's first run over the larger obstacles, and he appeared to attack them with zest, making all and jumping well. He'd be worth following.

It is often said that training Jump horses requires endless patience. And whilst there are undoubtedly those that take to the game like a duck to water, for others, the process of getting one's head in front can be tortuous.

So it has proved for 8 year old gelding Norvics Reflection, who has belied his impeccable breeding to remain a maiden under any form of racing until the age of 8. Beaten a total of 127l in 5 outings in the 2020-21 season, it may reasonably be assumed he was immature and unready for the task.

A two and a half year break has worked wonders for his motivation, if not necessarily for his owner's bank balance. That the owner is also his trainer, Ben Case, has not gone unremarked. Clearly, Ben saw something in the Mahler gelding to persist with. 

And so it proved. At Uttoxeter on Wednesday, he led from the off and showed great resolution to hold off Irish raider Bumble Bee Bet from Charles Byrnes' yard to win by a neck. 

Edgcote trainers are getting into their stride as the autumn begins to assert itself. Case is Edgcote's leading handler, and patience and expertise of this nature is one reason why. Sadly, the £4,356.80 won by Norvics Reflection in no way compensates for his faith in the gelding.

One of the greats of the US steeplechasing scene, Jonathan Sheppard, has died, aged 82 at his home in Pennsylvania.

For racing fans of a certain generation, Sheppard was a pioneer of international travel when bringing Flatterer over to run in the 1986 French Champion Hurdle, a precursor to a valiant second to See You Then in the third of that horse's Champion hat-tricks in 1987. At that juncture, the Breeders Cup didn't even exist, and international travel, excepting between Britain and Ireland, and the continent, was largely non-existent.

Flatterer's placed effort was the trigger to an effort to bring the US and UK markets closer together, brought about by the creation of the Sport of Kings Challenge, a set of six races - three on each side of the Pond - with handsome bonuses of up to $1m for winning a full set. Predictably, Sheppard was in the vanguard of the first US entries in the series, at Cheltenham, and Leopardstown. 

Commonly known just as "Jonathan", the elder statesman of US racing, was born in Ashwell, Hertfordshire, between Letchworth and Royston, in 1940 to a horsey family which encouraged his participation in local Point-to-Points. His father Daniel was an official with the Jockey Club, then the power in the sport covering regulation, finance, fixtures, the lot. Rides under Rules were scarce and limited.

There was no inevitability about a son following his father into the sport. Three other siblings avoided the racing bug, but Jonathan opted to try his hand in the land of opportunity, not having the finance to bankroll a start up training operation in the UK. In the early sixties, he worked with other legend Burly Cocks for two seasons before returning briefly to the UK. 

A lucky break was the making of his career with steeplechasers. In 1965, he met George Strawbridge Jnr, an accomplished and wealthy amateur rider, and heir to the Campbell Soup fortune.  The two set about growing a stable not just of National Hunt horses, but Flat too. Strawbridge was leading owner some 23 times from 1974 onward, a domination only really matched by one J P McManus over here. 

The Sheppard stable became both the go-to and the dominant force in the sport stateside. His 1,242 career wins over obstacles, winning over $25m, set records unlikely to be overtaken in our lifetimes, and he was Champion Trainer 26 times, the last just three years ago.

But whilst to most, Sheppard was considered an icon of the National Hunt world, his 2,184 victories on the Flat dwarfed his Jumping achievements, his horses winning some $60m+.

Like many good trainers of horses, Sheppard attracted the best human talent too. Those that worked with him have gone on to great success; just like the Duke and Reg Hollinshead, he was a nurturer of talent both equine and human. Graham Motion, who led up Flatterer in that epic Champion Hurdle adventure in '87, is now a highly successful Flat trainer in the States winning the Kentucky Derby in 2011 and Dubai World Cup 2 years later, whilst Janet Elliott became champion Jumps trainer in '91. More recently, Leslie Young and Keri Brion, who brought horses across to Ireland with a view to the Festival, have shown Sheppard's knowledge continued to flow even after his retirement.

The Jumps world is a sadder place without his diplomatic approach, hard work and understated expertise, and the Point-to-Point world can take pride that he launched from our fold.

Champion trainer Paul Nicholls showed that his expertise for the craft extends from the zenith of the sport at Cheltenham to its grass roots in hunter chasing and Point-to-Point when picking up the feature event at Stratford's hunters' evening on Friday.

But whilst he took the scalp of last year's winner Vaucelet in the feature Pertemps Network Stratford Foxhunter with Secret Investor, it was clear to see that daughter Olive's victory on Shantou Flyer in the Royal Equestrian Racing Club Ladies Open Championship final gave him still more pleasure.

Olive has been riding out of her skin this season, her second between the flags. 39 rides have resulted in 11 winners, of which Shantou Flyer has provided four, starting at Larkhill in late November before progressing through Chaddesley, and hunter chases at Exeter before Stratford. Always handy in this last race, she took up the running from the seventh, and never looked back. The 12l winning distance was a reflection of this horse's superior rating, 12lb ahead of the next best in the field of 7.

Trainer Sam Loxton, third in this race last year with Caid du Berlais, has enjoyed an impressive strike rate between the flags this season. One in three of his 36 pointing or hunter chase winners has passed the post first, a rate not even his mentor Nicholls can achieve.

In truth however, Nicholls' interest in the sport is largely because of Olive's success. The man who has conquered the heights of the sport's greatest races is very much at home in the amateur division of the sport, but owners and trainers need have little fear he is planning to dominate. This is a family affair.

Secret Investor, owned by Herefordshire - based Clive Hitchings - was a deserving winner of the Pertemps Network Stratford Foxhunter, but the rapidly diminishing 3l margin would have been reversed in another furlong. Runner-up Vaucelet, who lost a shoe in running, was hard - driven to make up ground from three out, and were it not for a messy leap at the last, the positions might have been reversed. It looks like 3m is my optimum trip, given his largely blemish - free season of 4 from 5 outings has rarely been over longer distances. Yet the sport is the winner for having a horse of this calibre within it; Secret Investor, rated 142, is the winner of 11 races and over £167,000 in prize money, toward which this £11,000 prize is yet a modest contribution.

Vaucelet will likely be back again; trainer David Christie enjoys this meeting and has met success here on several occasions, plus the homestay hospitality of Managing Director Ilona Barnett adds a considerable advantage!

Secret Investor and Vaucelet may well have to contend with a new challenger next year in Sine Nomine, winner of the pointtopoint.co.uk Champion Novices Hunters' Chase over the same 3m 3f distance. This gripping race saw plenty to excite the enthusiast. Three rounded the turn closely bunched, with Sine Nomine boxed in on the rail by a Jack Andrews on Brave Starlight, determined not to give race room. Once beyond the rail, Jack Dawson had the speed to take up an inner berth as Precious Bounty, with Sine Nomine to the inner, Brave Starlight to the outer, jumped the last in unison. The last two went on, before Dawson was able to conjure some extra speed to get him 2 1/2l clear in the final 100 yards.

Winning trainer Fiona Needham has recently stepped down as Clerk of Course for Catterick to devote more time to the family farm. The trip back up to North Yorkshire will have been all the sweeter for the anticipation of what is to come from this exciting novice.

Gina Andrews, crowned champion lady amateur rider during the course of the evening, showed just why she has won that accolade when getting up to win the Grace & Dotty Restricted Novices Hunters' event over 2m6f, to ensure no Hunters' evening was without an Andrews winner. In a white knuckle finish, favourite Captain Biggles and long - time leader Raleagh Flora, under Charlie Marshall, joined issue turning out of the bend, and met the last in unison. With a winning distance of just a head, it was only favourite backers who were glad of the result; a dead heat would have been as fair. Winning trainer Tom Ellis breaks records in the amateur level of the sport as frequently as Paul Nicholls in the professional game, this taking his seasonal tally into the mid seventies.

The Paul & Olive Nicholls team narrowly missed out on what could have been a double after Magic Saint went under by just 1 1/2l in the opening Jumping for Fun Hunters Chase over the minimum trip. leading off the bend, Magic Saint was in command, but Kaproyale under Zac Baker, took closer order. A blunder at the last gave the advantage back to the Nicholls contender, but Baker, having kept his seat, was able to conjure another run from Kaproyale to peg back the leader halfway up the run in and pull 1 1/2l ahead by the line. It was a 17th victory for winning trainer Fran Poste.

Jack Andrews, denied a winner in the Novice Championship, made sure of his place on the Winners' board for this annual Hunter chase jamboree in the closing Visit Irish Store Sales with ITM Point-to-Point Bumper. Some may argue a flat race has no place in the Point-to-Point circuit, but the influx of h=young horses gives the lie to this outdated argument. Racegoers were rewarded with a gripping race in which Nigel Padfield's Penniless ensured that was most certainly not the case with a 1/2l victory over Old Gold. The winning owner gets a £1,000 cheque to spend at any Irish sale coming up so chances are a Padfield horse will appear in the same race next year.

One truly unique race makes up this innovative and popular card, being the 2m 5f Hunter Chase handicap, underwritten by the White Swan Hotel. Two non-runners on account of the ground made this just a 5 runner field with a weight range from 12st 5 to 10st 5. Winner Sixteen Letters looks a horse to frustrate his trainer and rider Josh Newman. Plenty of ear movement approaching and after the last indicated he had more in the tank as Gina Andrews galvanised Peacock's Secret alongside, but Sixteen Letters decided to find more and the 2l winning margin is not a reflection of his superiority when he opts to show it.